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RFA President Dinneen Responds to EIA Report

Washington—In response to a report issued by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), Bob Dinneen, President and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) commented:

“The EIA has consistently proven Yogi Berra right, ‘the future is hard to predict’. The agency has consistently underestimated biofuels productions and the ability of the market to respond to progressive energy policy.

"Nevertheless, the EIA projections make a strong case for redoubling efforts to expand consumer choice and open our fuel markets in a more meaningful way. If we don’t take concrete steps today toward opening the fuel market to renewable alternatives, we’ll be relegated to a future of more petroleum — and it will come from increasingly dirtier sources.

"If we don’t act now to conquer the E10 blend wall, accelerate E15 commercialization, and provide American drivers with real choices at the pump, we will be condemned to the oil-dependent future outlined in EIA’s projections.”

Dinneen continued, “While Big Oil will undoubtedly use these projections to suggest we should surrender our future to petroleum and abandon our pursuit of advanced ethanol technologies, the takeaway for the rest of us is clear — we can’t afford to give up on the next generation of biofuels.

"Rather than walking away from a biofuel future, we need to step up our efforts today to loosen Big Oil’s grasp on the fuel market and ensure consumers have access to cleaner, cheaper renewable fuels. Today’s EIA report underscores exactly why the ethanol industry has been working diligently for years to introduce E15, mid-level blends, and E85 to the marketplace and why we have also supported the Open Fuel Standard.”

“Keep in mind EIA has a history of grossly underestimating the ingenuity and productivity of the American renewable fuels industry. In its 2001 projections, released just 10 years ago, EIA predicted the U.S. would produce just 2.8 billion gallons of ethanol in 2011 — in actuality, we produced nearly five times that amount last year.

"That shows renewable fuels technologies can be scaled very rapidly when they are allowed to compete more fairly with oil and when the right federal policies are put in place. EIA has bet against renewable fuels and lost in the past.

"Why should we believe the outcome will be any different in the future?”